Coaching staff remains unsettled for 2010
ByJohnny Damon, Andy Pettitte, and Hideki Matsui have dominated headlines over the past two weeks, but they’re not the only Yankee free agents. The Yankees face decisions on most of their 2009 coaching staff, and according to Brian Cashman, the team is “nowhere” in those talks. Manager Joe Girardi and hitting coach Kevin Long are under contract for 2010, but the contracts of all other coaches have expired.
Cashman did add that the team “would love to have all of them back under the proper circumstances,” which likely mean one-year contracts with a salaries similar their 2009 figures. The coaches include pitching coach Dave Eiland, bench coach Tony Pena, third base coach Rob Thomson, first base coach Mick Kelleher, and bullpen coach Mike Harkey.
Do coaches typically only get 1-year deals?
…fist base coach Mick Kelleher
[/Brennaman'd]
/Caray’d
Although I’m sure you could find fault with a play here and there over the long season-not enough to get rid of any of these guys in my opinion. I’m sure with that full world series share-they all want to be back. Kinda like umpires-if we don’t talk about them, then they are doing the job….
Bullpen coach seems like a pretty good gig to me. You get paid the bucks to talk for a moment with the manager.
Kick back and have laughs with the relievers too.
Pretty awesome.
Actually, I think your job is to keep tabs on how all the relievers are feeling on a given day and to keep track of matchups and stuff (to provide to the manager on-demand)
I want them all back too. They did a good job. I just like Kelleher mimicking Tex over at 1st and gobbling up anything hit near him, even if its in foul territory
They should all be back. All did a good job.
You have to bring back the staff coming off a championship.
Joba & Hughes starting full time now. Gimme Dave Duncan. Sorry eiland.
neither one of them throws a sinker. no thanks. i’ll take eiland who has been with them for years
Duncan has two WS rings in 21 years as a pitching coach. Eiland has one ring in two years as a pitching coach.
/MSM’d
Give Eiland the boot after CC and Andy had amazing years?
I wouldn’t say Andy had an amazing year, and yea, CC had a great year. But both of them had been just as good or better in prior years. I think Eiland should be back, but not because he was the reason behind CC and Andy pitching well.
i know we’re the yankees and are entitled to whomever we want, but why do we think Duncan is either available or interested?
I find it funny that the general sentiment seems to be that everyone did a great job. Maybe they did; I have no idea. I just don’t think that we’re privy to the kind of information that would give us an objective analysis to make some sort of judgment as to their approaches, results, successes and failures.
We may have an easier job when it comes to evaluating Girardi’s decisions since much of what he does is openly subject to scrutiny. You could even make the case for judging Eiland and Long. But Pena, the bullpen coach and base coaches are more behind-the-scenes positions—I don’t think it’s fair for us to say they did a great job or a poor job or a mediocre job considering what empirical evidence we lack.
Just my opinion.
True-we don’t have the stats and data to crunch but given what we know and see-and being the most intense and, at times, critical Yankee fans around I say we keep ‘em based on what we know. I agree that Pena as bench coach and Cervelli-coach will be key. Notice how Cervelli is much more flexible and stretches out his right leg a la Pena. He also frames pitches well. I like his defensive skills…
Notice how Cervelli is much more flexible and stretches out his right leg a la Pena
You noticed that Cervelli is much more flexible? Really? That’s pretty impressive if you did. How did you notice that?
In comparison to Posada and Molina-it’s not saying much but Francisco has alot more bounce and spring in his younger legs. Don’t know how much coaching Pena can/has done with Po and Mo but those two guys set up differently. I saw Pena catch quite a bit and he had a long, injury-free career in terms of his knees. I’m sure this will help Cervelli….I guess we’ll see more next year
Are you crediting Pena with the fact that Cervelli is 10+ years younger than those guys?
Don’t know why you are asking a silly question like that. Pena is bench coach and catcher’s coach. I have seen him work with catchers in spring training and I have seen him play and watched his style with his right leg out straight and left knee on the ground. Cervelli will do the same from time to time. Jorge doesn’t-nor does Molina. Just different styles and I hope it works to our advantage defensively if Cervelli sticks as our catcher. I don’t think Molina will be on the team next year so in anticipating a bigger role for Cervelli I’m sure we will be hearing more about the influence of Pena..
I like Tony Pena a lot and hope he’s back to work with Cervilli, Montero and the like. Also, I like Rob Thompson’s aggressive approach 95% of the time.
Thompson’s aggressive approach – awesome b/c team was awesome
Meacham’s aggressive approach – worse than Hitler b/c the team was struggling
for the record, i agree that Thompson did a good job.
i just found the scapegoating of Bobby Meacham last season hilarious.
as a fan, i fall into the trap of “evaluating” coaches based on how comfortable the players seem around them. i recall noticing players smiling at/joking around with kelleher and long more than thompson and eiland. regarding thompson, the fact that i didn’t notice him too much means he must have done a really good job. there was such a good “vibe” around the team this year and my guess is the coaches contributed to that (or at least stayed out of the way). i’d love to have everyone back
Rob Thompson definitely needs to be back. He does a great job.
For no reason other than he’s a big scary dude, I say bring back Mike Harkey.
Agreed. I want Harkey on our team to be around in case a fight breaks out.
Yes, I remember after they won the WS I expected Mike Harkey to pick up the entire team in one arm and the rock in his other arm. <3 Mike Harkey <3